If someone else has an iMac and an iPad and could give me an appraisal of the music sound qualities of the two, compared, it would help me judge a potential iPad purchase. It would seem bizarre to have to use an external speaker with the iPad, so I hope I need not do that. Though I see some apparently doing it with Bluetooth, etc.

The iMac speakers are quite good, even in an adjacent room. It bothers me not a bit that the iPad has speakers side by side. I never fell for the "stereo" scam that hit the lagging electronic sales market about 1958.